"The oldest, shortest words, yes and no, are those that require the most thought," he once said.

The great Greek thinker was obsessed with numbers and believed mathematics was the key to explaining the ten sides of reality. "All things are numbers, said Pythagoras who laid the cornerstone of scientific geometry. He worked out his famous theory on triangles to compute the hypotenuse of a right triangle (a²+b²=c²).

He and his followers, the Pythagorean Order, practiced celibacy and silence and were strict vegetarians who banned the eating of beans because they believed that a bean, cut open, looked like the beginning of humanlife.

"Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please," said Pythagoras. His theories inspired the development of mathematics, music, architecture, the visual arts, philosophy, and more.